The present invention is directed to providing an apparatus for and method of laying a minefield in open water. In particular, this invention relates to transporting mines to a target area in an air-cushion vehicle, deploying the mines from the air-cushion vehicle while it is rapidly moving, and recording the location of each deployed mine with GPS equipment.
Laying mines in waterways is always hazardous. The hazard extends to both the vessel or craft that is laying the mines and the friendly vessels that may later pass through the area near the minefield. This is particularly true where the mine laying operation might come under unfriendly surveillance and hostile action. In addition, mines or explosive countermeasures that were previously dispersed in an area may imperil this subsequent mine laying effort.
For obvious reasons, conventional surface craft are vulnerable to these hazards. Therefore, aircraft have been relied upon to lay mines and the use of a high volume mine rack for these aircraft has been advocated. The rack was specifically designed to disburse large quantities of mines from aircraft so that large areas could be mined quickly. This capability was to augment the present use of aircraft and submarines to deploy mines in limited quantities.
However, all deployments of mines from aircraft are subject to large placement errors associated with dropping mines from altitude. These placement errors make it difficult to accurately map the location of emplaced fields of sea mines. Consequently, the aircraft deployments have almost no accurate and acceptable mapping capability. Additionally, even when the location of an enemy minefield is known, no viable capability exists that can accurately seed an enemy minefield with other mines from the air. Aircraft simply cannot deploy mines with enough accuracy to be effective.
Thus, in accordance with this inventive concept, a need has been recognized in the state of the art for an apparatus for and method of laying mines from a rapidly moving air-cushion vehicle and accurately marking their locations with GPS equipment.